Shakespeare's plays
| Title |
Year written |
First publications |
Performances |
Authorship notes |
| Antony and Cleopatra |
1601–1608 |
First published in the First Folio |
Believed to have been between 1606 and 1608. |
|
| Summary |
In a setting soon after Julius
Caesar, Marc Antony is in love with Cleopatra, an Egyptian queen. What used to
be a friendship between Emperor Octavius and Antony develops into a hatred as
Antony rejects the Emperor's sister, his wife, in favor of
Cleopatra. Antony attempts to take the throne from Octavius and
fails, while Cleopatra commits suicide. |
| Coriolanus |
|
First published in the First Folio |
No recorded performances prior to the Restoration;
the first recorded performance involved Nahum Tate's bloody 1682 adaptation at Drury
Lane. |
|
| Summary |
The Roman military leader Caius Martius, after
leading Rome to several victories against the Volscans, returns
home as a war hero with a new last name, Coriolanus, given for the
city of Corioles which he conquered. However, after an attempt at
political office turns sour, he is banished from Rome as a traitor.
Hungry for revenge, Coriolanus becomes leader of the Volscan army
and marches to the gates of Rome. His mother, his wife, and his
son, however, beg him to stop his attack. He agrees and makes peace
between Romans and Volscans, but is assassinated by enemy
Volscans. |
| Hamlet |
Likely early 1600s |
First published in the so-called "bad" First Quarto,
1603 |
Earliest recorded performance of Hamlet was in June 1602, with
Richard
Burbage in the title role. |
Some scholars, such as Peter Alexander and Eric Sams, believe that the oft-attributed
source work known as the Ur-Hamlet was actually a first draft of the
play, written by Shakespeare himself sometime prior to 1589.[2] |
| Summary |
Prince Hamlet is visited by his father's
ghost and ordered to avenge his father's murder by killing King Claudius, his
uncle. After struggling with several questions, including whether
what the ghost said is true and whether it is right for him to take
revenge, Hamlet, along with almost all the other major characters,
is killed. |
| Julius Caesar |
1599[3] |
First published in the First Folio |
Thomas Patter, a Swiss traveller, saw a tragedy about Julius Caesar at a
Bankside theatre on
September 21, 1599. This was most likely Shakespeare's play. There
is no immediately obvious alternative candidate. (While the story
of Julius Caesar was dramatized repeatedly in the
Elizabethan/Jacobean period, none of the other plays known are as
good a match with Patter's description as Shakespeare's play.)[4] |
|
| Summary |
Cassius
persuades his friend Brutus to
join a conspiracy to kill Julius Caesar, whose power seems to be
growing too great for Rome's good. After killing Caesar, however,
Brutus fails to convince the people that his cause was just. He and
Cassius eventually commit suicide as their hope for Rome becomes a
lost cause. |
| King Lear |
1603–1606[5][6] |
|
First recorded performance: December 26, 1606 |
|
| Summary |
An aged king divides his kingdom among two of his
daughters, Regan and Goneril, and casts the youngest, Cordelia, out
of his Kingdom for disloyalty. Eventually he comes to understand
that it is Regan and Goneril who are disloyal, but he has already
given them the kingdom. He wanders the countryside as a poor man
until Cordelia comes with her husband, the King of France, to
reclaim her father's lands. Regan and Goneril are defeated, but
only after Cordelia has been captured and murdered. King Lear then
dies of grief. |
| Macbeth |
1603–1606[7] |
First published in the First Folio |
There are "fairly clear allusions to the play in 1607."[8] The
earliest account of a performance of the play is April 1611, when
Simon Forman
recorded seeing it at the Globe Theatre.[9] |
The text of Macbeth which survives has plainly been
altered by later hands. Most notable is the inclusion of two songs
from Thomas Middleton's play The Witch (1615)[10] |
| Summary |
Macbeth, a Scottish noble, is urged by his wife to
kill King Duncan in order to take the throne for himself. He covers
the king's guards in blood to frame them for the deed, and is
appointed King of Scotland. However, people suspect his sudden
power, and he finds it necessary to commit more and more murders to
maintain power, believing himself invincible so long as he is
bloody. Finally, the old king's son Malcolm besieges Macbeth's
castle, and Macduff slays Macbeth in armed combat. |
| Othello |
|
|
|
|
| Summary |
Othello, a Moor
and military general living in Venice, elopes with Desdemona, the daughter of a
senator. Later, on Cyprus, he is persuaded by his servant Iago that his wife (Desdemona) is having an
affair with Michael Cassio, his lieutenant. Iago's
story, however, is a lie. Desdemona and Cassio try to convince
Othello of their honesty but are rejected. Pursuing a plan
suggested by Iago, Othello sends assassins to attack Cassio, who is
wounded, while Othello himself smothers Desdomona in her bed.
Iago's plot is revealed too late, and Othello commits suicide. |
| Romeo and Juliet |
1595–1596, with a possible early draft written in 1591[11][12] |
First published in 1597 in Q1[13] |
First performed sometime between 1591 and March 1597[14] |
|
| Summary |
In Verona, Italy, two families, the Montagues and
the Capulets, are in the midst of a bloody feud. Romeo, a Montague,
and Juliet, a Capulet, fall in love and struggle to maintain their
relationship in the face of familial hatred. After Romeo kills
Juliet's cousin Tybalt in a fit of passion, things fall apart. Both
lovers eventually commit suicide within minutes of each other, and
the feuding families make peace over their recent grief. |
| Timon of Athens |
|
|
|
Brian Vickers and others argue
that Timon of Athens was co-written with Thomas
Middleton, though some commentators disagree.[15] |
| Summary |
Timon of Athens is an apparently wealthy man in his
community who freely gives of his abundance to those around him.
Eventually, it becomes apparent that he is living on credit, when
all of his creditors ask for payment on the same day. Timon asks
for his friends to help, but is refused. Angry at mankind's double
nature, he leaves the city for the wilderness, and lives in a cave.
Despite the efforts of several men to cheer his spirits, he dies
full of hatred for humanity. |
| Titus Andronicus |
|
|
|
Brian Vickers argues that Titus Andronicus was
co-written with George
Peele, though Jonathan Bate, the play's most recent editor for
the Arden
Shakespeare, believes it to be wholly the work of
Shakespeare.[16] |
| Summary |
Roman war hero Titus Andronicus returns victorious
in his wars against the Goths. He kills one of the sons of the
Queens of the Goths in a revenge ritual, despite her pleadings.
When the queen becomes the Empress of Rome, she takes revenge on
the house of Andronici for her son's blood. She has her sons rape
and mutilate Titus' daughter, Lavinia, over her husband's murdered
corpse, then frames Titus' own sons for the murder. Lavinia,
however, manages to communicate to her father who the true
murderers were, and Andronicus takes revenge, killing the queen and
her two sons, but being killed in the act. |
| Troilus and Cressida |
|
|
|
|
| Summary |
The Trojans are under siege by the Grecian army of
Agamemnon. Troilus, a Trojan, falls in
love with Cressida, a
Greek captive. When Cressida is given back to the Greeks as part of
a prisoner exchange, Troilus fears that she will fall in love with
one of them. His fears prove to be true when he crosses enemy lines
during a truce and sees her and a Greek man together. |
Shakespeare's plays
| Title |
Year written |
First publications |
Performances |
Authorship notes |
| All's Well That Ends
Well |
1601–1608 |
First published in the First Folio |
Believed to have been between 1606 and 1608. |
No recorded performances before The Restoration.
The earliest recorded performance was in 1741 at Goodman's Fields,
with another the following year at Drury Lane. |
| Summary |
Helena, a ward of the Countess of Rousillion, falls
in love with the Countess's son, Bertram. Daughter of a famous
doctor, and a skilled physician in her own right, Helena cures the
King of France - who feared he was dying - and he grants her
Bertram's hand as a reward. Bertram, however, offended by the
inequality of the marriage, sets off for war, swearing he will not
live with his wife until she can present him with a son, and with
his own ring - two tasks which he believes impossible. However with
the aid of a bed trick,
Helena fulfils his tasks, Bertram realises the error of his ways,
and they are reconciled. |
| As You Like It |
1599–1600 |
First published in the First Folio |
No recorded performances prior to the Restoration;
the first recorded performance involved Nahum Tate's bloody 1682 adaptation at Drury
Lane. |
No recorded performances before The Restoration,
though there was a possible performance at Wilton House in Wiltshire; the King's Men were paid £30
to come to Wilton House and perform for the King and Court
(remaining there due to an outburst of the bubonic plague)
on December 2, 1603. A Herbert family tradition states the play was
As You Like It.[17] The
King's
Company was assigned the play by royal warrant in 1669, and it
was acted at Drury Lane in 1723 in an
adapted form called Love in a Forest.[18] |
| Summary |
|
| The Comedy of Errors |
1592–1594 |
First published in the First Folio |
The first recorded performance was by "a company of base and
common fellows," mentioned in the Gesta Grayorum ("The
Deeds of Gray") as having occurred in Gray's Inn Hall on Dec. 28, 1594. The second
also took place on "Innocents' Day" but ten years
later - in 1604, at Court.[note
2] |
|
| Summary |
Egeon, about to be executed for unlawfully entering
Ephesus, tells the sad tale of his search for his twin sons and
wife. The Duke agrees to spare him if his family is found.
Meanwhile, his twin sons, both of whom are named Antipholus, are
actually in Ephesus, each unaware that he even has a twin. After a
series of hilarious events involving mistaken identity almost
ending in catastrophe, the twins are reunited with their mother and
father, and realize their relation to each other. |
| Cymbeline |
This play is hard to date, though a relationship with a
tragicomedy that Beaumont and Fletcher wrote ca.
1609-10 tends to support this dating around 1609; though it is not
clear which play preceded the other.[19] |
First published in the First Folio |
Only one early performance is recorded with certainty,[note 3]
which occurred on Wednesday night of Jan. 1, 1634, at Court. |
Possible collaboration[note
4] |
| Summary |
The princess Imogen loves the commoner Posthumus,
and marries him, but her father, king Cymbeline, disapproves of the
match and exiles Posthumus. In exile, he meets the rogue Jachimo -
who, to win a wager, persuades Posthumus, wrongly, that he
(Jachimo) has slept with Imogen. Enraged, Posthumus orders a
servant, Pisanio, to murder Imogen, but he cannot go through with
his orders, and instead she finds herself befriended by the
wild-living Polydore and Cadwal - who turn out to be her own
brothers: Cymbeline's princes who had been stolen from his palace
in their infancy. The repentant Posthumus fights alongside Polydore
and Cadwal in a battle against the Romans, and following the
intervention of the god Jupiter, the various truths are revealed,
and everyone is reconciled. |
| Love's Labour's Lost |
|
|
|
|
| Summary |
|
| Measure for Measure |
|
|
|
|
| Summary |
|
| Merchant of
Venice |
|
|
|
|
| Summary |
Antonio borrows money from Shylock, a Jewish
moneylender, in order to lend money to his friend Bassanio.
Bassanio uses the money to successfully woo Portia, a wealthy and
intelligent woman with a large inheritance. Unfortunately, a tragic
accident makes Antonio unable to repay his debt to Shylock, and he
must be punished as agreed by giving a pound of his flesh to the
moneylender. Portia travels in disguise to the court and saves
Antonio by pointing out that Shylock may only take flesh, and not
any blood. Shylock is foiled, Portia reveals her identity, and
Antonio's wealth is restored. |
| Merry Wives of
Windsor |
|
|
|
|
| Summary |
|
| A Midsummer Night's
Dream |
Approximately 1595 |
Registered in the 1600 quarto by Thomas Fisher on October 8,
1600[20] |
The title page assures it was "sundry times publicly acted by
the Right Honorable the Lord Chamberlain and his Servants" prior to
1600 publication. |
|
| Summary |
In Athens, Hermia is in love with Lysander, defying
her father's command to marry Demetrius; the couple flee to the
woods to avoid the law sentencing her to death or a nunnery.
Demetrius pursues them, and is in turn pursued by Helena, who is in
unrequited love with him. Meanwhile a group of low-class workers
decides to stage a play for the wedding of the King and Queen of
Athens; they rehearse in the woods. Fairy king Oberon is quarreling
with his queen Titania; he magically causes her to fall in love
with one of the actors, Bottom, whom he has transformed to have the
head of an ass. He also attempts to resolve the Athenian youths'
love triangle, but his servant Puck accidentally causes both
Lysander and Demetrius to fall in love with Helena instead of
Hermia. In the end, Oberon has Puck restore Lysander to loving
Hermia, allows Demetrius to stay in love with Helena, and returns
Titania to her senses and Bottom to his shape. They return to
Athens, where Lysander and Hermia are pardoned and they all watch
the workers (badly) perform their play. |
| Much Ado about
Nothing |
|
|
|
|
| Summary |
|
| Pericles, Prince of
Tyre |
Either 1607–1608, or written at an earlier date and revised at
that time[21] |
1609 quarto[21] |
The Venetian ambassador to England, Zorzi Giustinian, saw a
play titled Pericles during his time in London, which ran from Jan.
5, 1606 to Nov. 23, 1608. As far as is known, there was no other
play with the same title that was acted in this era; the logical
assumption is that this must have been Shakespeare's play.[22] |
Shakespeare is thought to be responsible for the main portion
of the play after scene 9.[23][24][25][26] The
first two acts were likely written by a relatively untalented
reviser or collaborator, possibly George Wilkins.[27] |
| Summary |
This episodic story, covering many years, charts
the history of Pericles, who believes he has lost both his daughter
and his wife, but is ultimately reunited with both. His daughter
Marina, sold into prostitution, proves to be a paragon of virtue;
and his wife Thaisa, recovered by a skilled doctor having been
buried at sea, becomes a priestess of the goddess Diana. |
| The Taming of the
Shrew |
|
|
|
|
| Summary |
|
| The Tempest |
|
|
|
|
| Summary |
Prospero, overthrown and exiled Duke of Milan,
lives on a small island with his daughter Miranda. By chance, his
usurping brother Antonio, along with Alonso, King of Naples (who
helped him) and his retinue, have passed near the island on a ship;
Prospero, aided by his fairy servant Ariel, has magically called up
a tempest to shipwreck them. Prospero toys with them but ultimately
forgives Alonso (who has been betrayed in turn by Antonio) and
permits Alonso's son Ferdinand to marry Miranda. Before returning
to reclaim his throne, Prospero renounces magic. |
| Twelfth Night |
1600–1601[28] |
First Folio |
Earliest known performance 2 February 1602[29] |
|
| Summary |
Viola finds herself shipwrecked in Illyria and, assuming that her
brother Sebastian has died in the wreck, disguises herself as a man
in order to gain a position in Duke Orsino's court. Orsino sends
Viola (whom he knows as Cesario) to deliver a message to his love,
Olivia. Olivia, however, dislikes the Duke. She falls in love with
Viola, who she thinks is a man. Eventually, Viola's brother
Sebastian, who in fact was unharmed in the wreck, reappears. At a
critical moment, Viola's true identity is revealed when members of
the court notice the similarities between her and Sebastian. Olivia
quickly falls in love with Sebastian, and Viola confesses her love
for the Duke. |
| The Two Gentlemen of
Verona |
|
|
|
|
| Summary |
Two close fiends, Proteus and Valentine, are
divided when Valentine is sent to the Duke's court in Milan.
Proteus later follows, leaving behind his loyal beloved, Julia, and
he and Valentine both fall in love with the Duke's daughter,
Silvia. Valentine proves himself brave and honourable, while
Proteus is underhand and deceitful - and eventually attempts to
rape Silvia. Julia follows her betrothed to Milan, disguised as a
boy, Sebastian, who becomes Proteus' page. Eventually Proteus sees
the error of his ways and returns to Julia, while Valentine marries
Silvia. |
| The Two Noble Kinsmen |
1613–1614[30] |
Published as a quarto in 1635[30] |
|
Thought to be a collaboration with John Fletcher. Shakespeare
is thought to have written the following parts of this play: Act I,
scenes 1-3; Act II, scene 1; Act III, scene 1; Act V, scene 1,
lines 34-173, and scenes 3 and 4.[31] |
| Summary |
Two close friends, Palamon and Arcite, are divided
by their love of the same woman: Duke Theseus' sister-in-law
Emelia. They are eventually forced to compete publicly for her
hand, but once the bout is over, the victor dies tragically and the
other marries their love. |
| The Winter's Tale |
Estimates vary widely, from 1594–1611[32] |
First published in the First Folio. |
|
|
| Summary |
In Sicilia, King Leontes becomes convinced that his
wife, Hermione, is having an affair with his friend Polixenes, King
of Bohemia. He has her imprisoned and sends delegates to ask an
oracle if his suspicions are true. While in prison, Hermione gives
birth to a girl and Leontes has it sent to Bohemia to be placed
alone in the wild. When the delegates return and state that the
oracle has exonerated Hermione, Leontes remains stubborn and his
wife and son die. Sixteen years later, a repentant Leontes is
reunited with his daughter, who is in love with the Prince of
Bohemia. His wife is also later reunited with him by extraordinary
means. |
Shakespearean
histories
| Title |
Year written |
First publications |
Performances |
Authorship notes |
| Henry IV, Part 1 |
Likely early - mid 1590s |
First published in a 1598 quarto by Andrew Wise |
Though 1 Henry IV was almost certainly in performance by 1597,
the earliest recorded performance was on March 6, 1600, when it was
acted at Court before the Flemish Ambassador. Other Court
performances followed in 1612 and 1625. |
|
| Henry IV, Part II |
1597–1599 |
First published in a quarto in 1600 by Valentine Simms |
The quarto's title-page states that the play had been "sundry
times publicly acted" before publication. Extant records suggest
that both parts of Henry IV were acted at Court in 1612—the records
rather cryptically refer to the plays as Sir John Falstaff and
Hotspur. |
|
| Henry
V |
1599 |
Published in a "bad quarto"[note
5] in 1600 by Thomas Millington and John
Busby; reprinted in "bad" form in 1603 and 1619, it was published
fully for the first time in the First Folio. |
A tradition, impossible to verify, holds that Henry V
was the first play performed at the new Globe Theatre in the spring of 1599; the
Globe would have been the "wooden O" mentioned in the Prologue. In
1600 the first printed text states that the play had been performed
"sundry times", though the first recorded performance was on
January 7 1605, at Court. |
|
| Henry VI, Part I |
1588–1592 |
First published in the First Folio |
Philip
Henslowe's diary records a performance of a Henry VI
on March 3, 1592, by the Lord Strange's Men. Thomas Nashe refers
in 1592 to a popular play about Lord Talbot, seen by "ten thousand
spectators at least" at separate times.[33][note
6] |
There is stylistic evidence that Part 1 is not by Shakespeare alone, but co-written
by a team with three or more unknown playwrights (though Thomas Nashe is a
possibility[34]). |
| Henry VI, Part II |
1590–1591 |
A version was published in 1594, and again in 1600 (Q2) and
1619 (Q3); the last as part of William Jaggrd's False Folio. |
See notes for Henry VI, Part I above. Parts I and III of Henry
VI are known to have been playing in 1592, and it is assumed (but
not reliably known) part 2 was presented at the same times. |
|
| Henry VI, Part III |
1590–1591 |
A version was published in 1594, and again in 1600 (Q2) and
1619 (Q3); the last as part of William Jaggrd's False Folio. |
Performed before 1592, when Robert Greene parodied one of the
play's lines in his pamphlet A Groatsworth of Wit. See
notes for Part II and I above. |
|
| Henry VIII |
|
|
A fire destroyed the Globe Theatre during a performance of
this play on June 29, 1613, as recorded in several contemporary
documents.[35] While
some modern scholars believe the play was relatively new (one
contemporary report states that it "had been acted not passing 2 or
3 times before"),[36] the
value of this has been questioned, since London diarist Samuel Pepys also
referred to Henry VIII as "new" in 1663, when the play was
at least 50 years old.[37] |
Thought to be a collaboration between Shakespeare and John Fletcher, due to the
style of the verse. Shakespeare is thought to have written Act I,
scenes i and ii; II,ii and iv; III,ii, lines 1-203 (to exit of
King); V,i. |
| King John |
|
|
|
|
| Richard II |
|
|
|
|
| Richard III |
|
|
|
|